Yes, another one - unfortunately!!! On Saturday Greg Boman (sp?), Andrew Pedley, Dirk Smith, and myself became victims while climbing at the Coven. Though we did spot the 3 would be muggers early enough, they told us that they were collecting wood and so we ignored them. 5 minutes later they worked their way up and were pointing a small gun (Dirk reckons a .22, whatever that means) and a filed down butter knife at us. They looked very nervous (but probably less than us) and demanded money and cell phones. We told them that we were told not to bring these to the crags and so had neither. They said that we were laying so we urged them to look for themselves. They hastily went through our packs, missing out on things such as knives, fancy sun glasses, etc. before leaving with a loaf of bread, Energade, a pair of old Nike shoes, nail clippers, a T shirt and a fancy fleece that Dirk won at last year's rally. At one stage the guy with the knife gave Dirk a very ineffectual slap after he told them that we were not so stupid as to take wallets to the crags, having been warned against people like them.
Once the muggers left I pulled out my hidden phone and called Gustav. He immediately organised a police patrol, but they were unable to locate the gang.
The bottom line is that despite recent arrests, the crags around Elandskrans are still unsafe. The cops told us that there are only a handful of hardened criminals in the township, but when one of them gets out of jail he recruits others to join him and so the pool increases. The guys who got us were probably at the early stages of apprenticeship.
Of course, the Coven will be secure for the Rock rally, but that is just a once-off solution. The good news is that the organisers of the rally are planning a meeting of all concerned climbers to discuss a long term solution to the problem. I'm not sure when the meeting will take place, probably on Monday after the climbing, but it would be great if all who climb at Boven regularly attended the meeting. It is an exciting opportunity for all of us to come up with constructive ideas on how to re-claim some of the best crags in S.A.

It was lack of awareness and talking by the vast majority of whities that perpetuated the system of apartheid that bred the poverty in the first place.

Awareness, thinking, talking and acting are what will get you out of bed this morning, to your job to make some money so that you can go climbing (thank god not in Boven this weekend) in a country that, though it has its challenges, you still haven't left and therefore I can only assume you haven't given up yet.

If you really were that pessimistic, you find yourself as a climber in far too many nice high places to have survived the urge to jump.

So for any of us who haven't bought our plane tickets yet, and who do enjoy that red rock, talking is a good option right now, and the Rock Rally is the perfect opportunity to get as many good climbing brains together as possible. Go Gustav n Co and Go Boven.

\"It was lack of awareness and talking by the vast majority of whities that perpetuated the system of apartheid that bred the poverty in the first place.\"

Oh crap!...White folks did not force everyone to have more kids than they could feed. Over population is what causes poverty. Almost all contries in Africa are poorer today, than they were 50 years back.

But there is still reason to be positive in SA. There are lots of good things happening.

I don’t think you can pin the cause of crime on one or two things, like a lack of talking or having too many mouths to feed. Other factors in turn are the cause of these things. Too many babies to feed for instance (sorry to use as example Marshall, no harm intended) could be caused by a lacking education in family planning, which might be the Dept of Health's resonsibility, thereby making the crime in Boven the Depts fault. So you can go round and round, there’s someone or something to blame for everything, and probably more than one as well.

This is what I think and you are welcome to disagree. I can be poor as anything and I would still not go steal a gun somewhere to go shoot someone else just to steal their phone or wallet with R10 in it. I was raised with a sense of morality that will not allow me to do that. If we got mugged for our food then that’s a different story isn’t it? But the fact is we don’t. Inane things and often nothing gets stolen, but a person is stabbed, shot and/or killed. Luckily no climbers (that I know of?) have been seriously injured or killed in a mugging, but maybe it could just be a question of time? These crimes are from malicious and criminal intent, plain and simple. In other words people who could give a good f___ about anyone else or the consequences of their actions. They are called criminals, not “previously disadvantaged” or “poor” or anything else. Criminals.

I’m all for discussion and talking and I will try to attend and contribute as much as possible. A good plan is the first step to any successful project. The challenge then comes in TAKING ACTION. We belong to clubs, protect crags, introduce people to this great sport and lifestyle, work with conservation parties to protect areas, in other words we make a CONTRIBUTION to society. We don’t need to apologize or tippy-toe around anyone and let our safety be compromised at our own crags!

The crime is a huge problem at Boven, but it’s starting to affect more and more crags around the country to some degree.

I think the discussion is an awesome opportunity to find a solution, 100 minds are surely better than a few? I wish all the participating climbers an absolute jol! Crank one for me; my plans to go fell through at the last minute.

Maybe webcams at strategic points? - expensive but one we've talked about in the Cape where cars are constantly being hit.

Last edited by Grigri on Mon Sep 25, 2006 12:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hi, I was one of the Mugees. This thread has gone nowhere. The solution is simple. I work in Mining and we have exactly the same problems. This is how we solve it. Educating the local people is great and lovely and should be done if there are the resources to do so. Difference is in Mining we are able to assure the locals that they do benfit at the end of the day. Problem with climbing is the locals dont get anything out of our climbing, except for the few guys Gustav employs. We dont eat at township cafes, we dont pay an access fee that goes to the township, aside from the ocassional quart of black label we buy at the Shabeen we contribute nothing and I dont see that changing, we must put our false promises aside. The only realistic solution is to employ one of a few 'elected' guys from the township as a 'monitor'. He sits on top of the coven with some binoculars and a radio to the police. For this the climbers pay him something like R100/day. This will work. The muggers are just kids, very nervous and are not organised. Climbers are an incredibly soft target and a guard would make us just a little bit harder. The telephone numbers of these guys could be on a board at Roc n Rope. I would like to see this in place as soon as possible as I want to go climb at the Coven very soon. Gustav?

When the little shite realised he was about to get a very old fashioned lesson on manners, he dropped the pack but stuck his paw into the top and annexed the 'little bag' and a couple of draws.....and then really put on a turn of speed.

Being pretty broken after a couple of days thrashing around Blouberg, and with a fused ankle to boot, I was disinclined to to pursue matters further.

Basically Sean and I cut his spoor down to the pig pens on the upper location border, and lost it on the tar. After that the usual, SAP to report and cruise around the town putting a bounty on the little sods head.....which still stands by the way.

Oh now youre interested in a solution guest? Good to see a turnaround! Guards and permits are probably the way to go, similar to Shongweni (Wave Cave) near Durban. Now if we can employ car guards for the Cape crags...

I am not too worried about not getting the wilderness experience if there is a guard, thats not why I go to the Coven, I go there to climb. There is plenty of wilderness time to be had at the Wonderland. In anycase, there is an ideal look out spot at the top of the crags where a guard see Coven, Flying is Fun and all the approaches so the guard would actually be out of sight, out of mind. Will this be possible Gus? I actually want to fo to the Coven soon and will not unless I can have a guard, even if it means taking someone off the street. Can we move on this one?

Yup the chat was short, to the point and had an actionable conclusion.

Looks like a permit system will be put in place to support the training of a couple of dependable locals as crag guards with mechanisms discussed to make them effective (alarm systems, panic buttons etc). Some fully lovely individual is donating some bucks to the start-up - good on ya buddy!

Its got a good chance of happening - Gus and Alex and team worked soooo hard to make Tranquilitas into a fantastic venue, and there are a number of competent people involved in the town who have a lot of commitment to its future.

A sizeable chunk of the climbing community who regularly use the crags were there (quorum whatever) and the idea was generally approved of. So - a useful weekend - and 1 hell of a party!

Recently there was another break-in at the complex where i live. The guard saw the perpetrator and positively identified him as the gardener's son. The police came but said they didn't have enough to open a case.

Now one asks, if an eye witness is not good enough for the police to do something, and the only thing the police seem vaguely useful for is to dish out case numbers, is it not time to wake up and smell the coffee and realise that the police in the country are never going to do anything.

As much as i have studied sociology and crime and that there is no one way of fighting crime, living in a country with very 1st world legal system but a very 3rd world mentality, maybe the only option is to make the state realise that they are not in control of the situation and allow some other system to slot into place until such time as law is restored.